betting on you
by Someone aka Me
Summary: At fourteen years old, Finnick Odair is, above everything else, a survivor.


For Karyn, GGE May 2015. Oops?

...

It starts with a boy — because he's not a man, not yet. He's fourteen years old and he wants to fish but they're calling his name, they're telling him to fight and all he can think is that he's not ready to die.

He doesn't want this.

But he's climbing the stage toward the Capitol representative and no one is volunteering to take his place. Four has volunteers sometimes, but Finnick knows most of the older boys.

No one is coming to save him. Not this year.

So he pulls in a breath, straightens his spine, and tips his chin up. He walks with pride. He walks like a _Victor_.

He doesn't want this. He wants to be a fisherman, and stay in Four, and he wants to _live_.

He meets the eyes of Mags, who trains all of the tributes for Four, who has done so for years, and she nods at him, her eyes sharp and her smile serene.

They call the name of the female tribute, an older girl Finnick only barely knows, and he hopes that he doesn't have to face her.

He doesn't want to know her.

He can't care about her. Because only one of them can come home. And Finnick is determined that it will be him.

…

Finnick is strong. He's used to the boats — to throwing and hauling nets, to tying knots. He can skin a fish in thirty seconds flat with a decent knife, and he can turn any knife into a decent one, given a stone and some time.

All of that gives him a chance, he knows, but it doesn't give him good odds. Not when he's fourteen and a head shorter than a lot of the other tributes.

No. What will give him an advantage is the same thing that has been turning heads in Four. Finnick knows how to make people look at him. He knows how to make sure they can't look away.

The first thing Mags says to him is, "You'll turn heads."

She looks at him, eyes dark and full of pain, and says, "I'm betting on you."

And somehow Finnick hears what she isn't saying.

Hears, _I can only bet on one of you._

He looks at her and he thinks about doing this every year, training children to kill or die, picking one of them to keep alive because there's no way it can be both, and for the first time, Finnick isn't sure he wants to win this.

…

Except that he wants to live.

He thinks about his mother and father and siblings at home.

He thinks about what it will do to them if he doesn't come home. He thinks about his mother crying and his father furious and he can't do that to them.

So he trains fast and hard and he smiles warm and charming and he flirts, unpracticed but natural.

And then they let him go in the arena, and he grabs a spool of thread and runs.

He finds a river, makes a net. He survives, watching the skies as others die. As the competition gets smaller and smaller. And he plays with his thread and his knots, and he gets gifts of bread from the sky.

He makes a trap.

The first person he catches in it is small but fast, a boy from Nine. He writhes against the ropes like a fish gasping for air.

That reminder helps.

It's just like a fish.

It's survival. It's kill or be killed.

And Finnick Odair is, above everything else, a survivor.

…

After his first kill, when the cannons sound and Finnick is thinking _I did that_ — it's after that when the package comes.

The best gift he could've been given. The trident gleams, and Finnick thinks of Mags, grinning at him and saying, "I'm betting on you," and he knows she understands him.

Finnick hefts it, testing the balance, and he grins, and he knows it's a little bit charming and a little bit savage. "Thank you," he says to the air.

And then he sets to work weaving more traps.

…

In the end, it is Finnick and the girl from Two. She is taller than him, broader, but Finnick is quicker and more wiley, and in the end she is entwined in his knots, snarling at him, and Finnick is hefting the golden trident and thinking, _Now, it can be over._

He couldn't have been more wrong.

…

It doesn't end with the games. It doesn't end with the victory tour. It doesn't end. Not for Finnick.

Because now he's a _Victor_.

He thinks that it will mean he is free.

It doesn't.

It just means that he is more trapped than ever.

…

Five years after Finnick was Reaped, he watches them pull Annie Cresta's name from the pile of paper slips. He watches her mount the stage, head held high, spine straightened. He watches her, seventeen and strong, smile at the crowd even though he can see the way her eyes are burning.

And when he gets her alone, he looks at her, eyes sharp and full of pain, and says, "I'm betting on you."

And somehow Annie hears what he isn't saying — in the same way he did with Mags.

Hears, _I can only bet on one of you._

He wonders if she knows what winning will cost her.


End file.
